LORAIN, Ohio – The environmental recovery of the Black River and the Port of Lorain has received another shot of funds to help bankroll a new restoration project. The Black River reuse project comes after $35 million has already been spent on environmental projects in the region.

On Dec. 3, the Ohio State Controlling Board released $9.9 million requested by the Department of Natural Resources for three Lake Erie port cities. The grants included $4 million to Lorain for the construction of a facility designed to recycle the equivalent of 13,000 dump truck loads of sediment dredged from the river and the harbor each year.

The Black River Dredge Reuse Facility will be located on a 30-acre site on the south bank of the river, about two miles from its mouth on Lake Erie.

The project is expected to become operational by 2020, when a new Ohio law takes effect that will end the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ practice of open-lake dumping of 1.5 million tons per year of sediment dredged from seven harbors on the lake’s southern shore.

Army Corps Chief of Public Affairs Andrew Kornacki said his agency has been working with the Ohio EPA and the different port authorities to devise plans for meeting the requirements of the new law

Shell’s recent success in the US Gulf of Mexico includes its deepwater Dover discovery on Mississippi Canyon 612, reported last year, near its Appomattox platform. The well was drilled by the Deepwater Poseidon ultra-deepwater drillship. Sources: Shell, Transocean.

In lieu of the traditional shovel groundbreaking, Miami City Commission chair Ken Russell, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami city manager Emilio T. Gonzalez (pictured l-r) perform the ceremonial water toss to mark the start of the first Miami Forever Bond project tackling flooding and sea-level rise. (Photo by City of Miami Office of Communications)